THE PTI protest is over — for now. There is a sense of relief. Imran Khan is being congratulated for seeing reason, with a few triumphant souls amongst us ensuring the message is accompanied by the not-so-subtle sighs meant to convey the disappointment over the time that has been consumed by the argument.

It was undesirable on their part, no doubt, but would it serve any purpose if the knowledgeable were to return to the old mode that basically involved condemning a group of people for their right to protest? Is it of any use that a move that is first welcomed is later derided as one that signified retreat if not surrender?

For months, everyone had been seeking to goad, guide or force Imran Khan towards an honourable exit out of the sit-in that began in August. The end came in the wake of a most unfortunate, most devastating school attack in Peshawar on Tuesday, which may delay the essential reprimands and ridicule reserved for a political leader who winds up a campaign midway.

Diehard believers have been too immersed in the PTI protest to let the ending go without expressing their disappointment. They had come a long way.

But ultimately, there is going to be an analysis of gains and losses, winners and failures, of those who determinedly stand by the system and those who are hell-bent on destroying it — the kind of stuff that often leads to booing and in dividing political camps in black and white.

Before the task is undertaken yet again, let’s reassert the need for a critical distinction: between an ideology which one is free to not agree with and a political leader’s right to fair hearing and redress based on the basic principles of justice and democracy.

You cannot dismiss an Imran Khan who is protesting for his right to know the truth about an election on the basis of his flawed ideology. Actually, what you do through this denial is that you encourage a growing number of the ‘naïve’ and ‘wayward’ to gather around the politician you are avowedly engaged in defeating.

There is a parallel debate, too, which is couched in an individual’s or a group’s understanding of what are and are not the real issues of Pakistan. A concerted effort to root out terrorism is no doubt the biggest demand of the time, but to say that someone who is pressing to lift the secret wraps around the electoral process is a danger rather than an accessory to a fair system would still amount to obfuscation. Unless the polls grievances are duly addressed the protest will not go away. It will continue in some form.

Imran Khan’s methods may change to suit the situation but those who think that he has been neutralised do so at their own peril. What the call-off has done is that it has placed the burden of carrying forward the process of addressing the PTI chief’s grievances squarely on the government — which has in the past been guilty of taking its challenger too lightly.

Diehard believers have been too immersed in the PTI protest to let the ending go without expressing their disappointment. They had come a long way. The voting bags in Lahore were about to vindicate them. The government, put under pressure through a series of lockdowns in major cities, had made overtures about an earnest return to dialogue. There were indeed reports that the protest had helped Imran sustain his popularity.

In the presence of all these factors, there must have been a strong sentiment in the PTI favouring a continuation of the dharna, even a toned-down version of it, waiting to pick up momentum and to regain the central focus it had enjoyed in the recent past at an opportune moment.

There is another — indeed reasonable — point of view on the subject. In the given circumstances, the lockdowns were out of the question. The dharna, which had ceased to be the main item on the PTI agenda after the launching of the public meetings in various cities, could only survive as a sideshow. It was set to be reduced to a happening in the distance, out of sync with the current of events and with a degraded status as no longer the main evening attraction for a lot of television watchers.

Without questioning the call for unity the PTI leader has made and the ideal of national cohesion he has responded to, there was little political logic in continuing with the sit-in — even though it must be said that coming from an Imran not renowned for heeding advice or surrendering to the odds the call-off had an element of surprise to it.

But there have been a few surprises coming from the ‘stubborn’ Imran along the way. What the government’s side and many commentators have been claiming as his retreats can alternatively be hailed as signs of flexibility by a sympathetic or even a simply fair audience.

There is a world of difference between the original demands of the PTI chief and what he is asking for now. Statements issued have been taken back and declarations made have been modified or withdrawn altogether and Imran makes a lot of sense to a lot of people out there when he says that he no longer insists on his biggest demand: that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif must resign to clear the way for a fair investigation of election 2013.

And a lot of people are going to see his latest decision to put the opposition on hold for the moment in the context of the allowances he has been making as a protest leader pressing for a just right for investigation of poll fraud. You and I may disagree sitting in our high democratic pedestals or living in the comfy progressive cocoons of our making, but ‘they’ are going to take the latest Imran turn as another sign of a maturing politician. They matter. They always do.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2014